Everyone is Charlie

RÉPUBLIQUE. Voltaire. Nation. Even the names of the roads and squares along which the Paris march took place on January 11th, held in defiance of terror and in defence of free speech, carried a heavy symbolism. Over 1m people, and perhaps as many as 2m, took to the streets for a peaceful “republican march”, after three days of terror in and around Paris that left 17 innocents and three terrorists dead. Other marches took place in cities across the country. It was a moment that captured, perhaps only fleetingly, a fresh breath of the national pride that has been so elusive in France these past few years, and that resonated to the world beyond.

The show of solidarity was both spontaneously local, and symbolically global. Leaders from across the world joined François Hollande, the French president, on the march. At front and centre, Mr Hollande linked hands with Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, and with Ibrahim Boubacar Këita, president of Mali—a country in which French forces helped push back a jihadist incursion last year. At one point, just four places in the front rank separated Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas, respectively the leaders of Israel and Palestine.